-The Telegraph With the funds blocked, I’ve been unable to pay some suppliers who want to be paid before they supply again, says a scientist Dozens of scientists who had been invited from positions abroad to join academic institutions across India under a prestigious government fellowship have not received research grants or salaries for months, the fellows and other scientists have said. The delay in the release of funds for the Ramalingaswami Fellowships,...

-Down to Earth Hurdles in availing financial support under Nikshay Poshan Yojana will exacerbate India’s tuberculosis crisis Only two-thirds of people living with tuberculosis benefitted from the Union government’s sole nutrition support scheme last year, highlighting bottlenecks in the fight against a major public health concern. The Nikshay Poshan Yojana entitles every tuberculosis (TB) patient, seeking treatment in either the public or private sector, to a direct benefit transfer (DBT) of Rs 500...

-TheWire.in While the system was rightly designed to eliminate ghost beneficiaries, the impact of exclusion errors needs to be professionally and independently evaluated in detail. The direct benefit transfer (DBT) system has come to dominate the discourse on public service delivery in India. The existing rhetoric around its efficacy being one of anti-corruption, cost efficiency, and elimination of middlemen. Payments under DBT are made to low-income households using an elaborate, digitised system...

-The Telegraph The health ministry, ICMR and DBT said they have not received any share of the Rs 100 crore pledged from the PM CARES Fund The department of biotechnology in the Union science ministry has spent only 13 per cent of the Rs 900 crore earmarked for Covid-19 vaccine development 14 months ago and multiple government departments have not received money for jabs pledged by the Prime Minister’s Office 20 months...

The recently released quarterly Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data broadly confirms the dip in employment and jobs during the countrywide lockdown period, followed by a certain degree of recovery in the post-lockdown months last year as have been indicated by various survey-based studies and research papers. The quarterly bulletin on PLFS provides data on key employment and unemployment indicators i.e. Unemployment Rate (UR), Worker Population Ratio (WPR) and Labour...